Whether or not 90% of American celebrate Christmas is irrelevant. Christmas is a religious holiday and one that is practiced by the person. Furthermore, our Constitution was designed to protect the rights of the minority, not the majority. The public school is there to educate; not indoctrinate and not to involve themselves in, promote or endorse the religious celebrations of students and teachers. They are there to EDUCATE.

Teachers can be Christian and can celebrate their savior in their personal life and on their person however their religion doesn't belong being taught and promoted to the students nor does it belong being part of the school activities and curriculum. Why is it that US Christians in certain parts of this country have such a hard time understanding or accepting the differences between a factual education and religion? If you are religious than that is wonderful. If you believe in Jesus, good for you. If you want to celebrate the day you believe your savior was born that's your right however what you do not get to do is take your religious beliefs and turn them into instructions and celebrations for the public classroom based on what you and your religion believes to be the truth. The public school system is for ALL, not just one religion and one belief.

Isn't having the right to have your religion enough? Why is it that the right to have a religion has to be intertwined into how we educate our students in certain states? Every day I see one southern state or another with some sort of conflict over factual education and religious belief; usually the issue being people upset that the science class won't put religious beliefs next to established, fact based scientific theories. There are fundamental differences between religion and facts that tens of millions of Americans do not understand or accept. While your religion may be your "truth", certain facts state otherwise and this conflict seems to be at the basis of most of these cases. It's very simple to rectify though. If you want your child to have a religious, Christian based education were the birth of Jesus is a major event celebrated by the school than you send them to a PRIVATE school that specializes in religious instruction. If you want your child to learn only what your religion tells you about human origins than you either home school them or send them to private religious school. Public schools should only be concerned with facts; not religious hocus pocus and magic. The public school system is paid for by tax payer, state and federal funds. It is a branch of the government and as such must remain neutral in it's approach to religion and religious belief. The First Amendment gives the person a right to their religion and SCOTUS rulings have upheld the right for the teacher or student to have a religious belief and even practice it in the public school so there was NO need for Missouri to make this law. The only thing the teachers and administrators are not allowed to do is use the school system in any way to promote a religion. This law is a clear attempt by lawmakers to allow the public school to become a platform for Christianity and to celebrate Christian holidays as a school. Again, the public schools must approach religion from a neutral position. These are not religious schools; they are secular ones.

Maybe if our public school system spent more time educating the students and less time worrying about celebrating their religious holidays, the US wouldn't lag behind the rest of the world in education. I guarantee you students in other first world countries don't have schools arguing about religious celebrations, or whether the Adam and Eve story should be told in the science class.

7:46 pm October 18, 2013

Hondo wrote:

Your concern is complete nonsense and propaganda...breath

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